


The Haunting of Erik Lehnsherr: A Christmas Carol

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Ghosts, M/M, Mistletoe, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik's business partner, Emma Frost, died seven years ago. This Christmas Eve, her ghost returns, dragging the chains of eternal torment, to say he can avoid her fate only through the visitation of three spirits, who will show him the mistakes of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part the First: Charles Xavier

**Author's Note:**

> Very important note: Erik is still Jewish here, and the story is not about him appreciating Christmas but about him becoming a better person. At no point does the narrative imply that he ought to become Christian, and I've tried hard not to offend. If you still don't like the idea, I apologize for distressing you, and suggest you find a fic more to your liking.
> 
> This fic probably owes as much various movie adaptations (particularly the Muppet Christmas Carol) as it does Dickens' original – which by the way I have quoted from copiously, so any especially well-turned phrase you see likely belongs to Dickens rather than me. Also, yes, I'm taking some liberties with the career opportunities open to women at the time.
> 
> A hundred thank-you's to [Dracoangelica](dracoangelica.tumblr.com) and [ExperimentalMadness](experimentalmadness.tumblr.com), who helped me not make a mess of this fic! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

Emma Frost was dead, to begin with. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. A beautiful woman struck down in her prime ought to have excited more grief than it did, but in truth the fever that carried her off lent more warmth to Miss Frost in her passing than any living passion had done. She was called the most aptly-named woman in London; she was called an example of what the unforgiving world of business could do to a woman's delicate temperament; and when she was gone, she was called the voice of reason whose departure had abandoned a score of unhappy tenants to the tender mercies of her business partner, Erik Lehnsherr.

Tender mercies, of course, which Mr. Lehnsherr did not possess. Hard and sharp as flint was Lehnsherr, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.

Seven years gone, Emma Frost had been laid in the ground, and still Lehnsherr had not resigned himself to the expense of repainting the sign above their counting-house door. _Frost & Lehnsherr,_ it still read, and folks whispered that it could as easily read _Frost & Snow._

The inside of the counting-house certainly bore out this theory, the expense of coal being so abhorrent a thought to Lehnsherr that his own office was hardly warm enough to support life, and that of his clerk, young Henry McCoy, rather less so. The cold was a trial indeed for McCoy, a quick and nervous fellow with all the long bones of youth and no meat upon them; he was often to be found at his desk wearing at once nearly all the clothes he owned, and occasionally holding up his hands to the meager light of the candle.

On this Christmas Eve, seven years to the day since the death of Emma Frost, McCoy approached his employer with trepidation for what had become a sort of annual tradition.

"You'll be wanting the day off tomorrow, I suppose," said Lehnsherr without looking up from his books.

"It is rather customary, sir," murmured McCoy.

"And if I docked your week's pay for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound. Yet no one thinks _me_ ill-used, to pay a day's wages without receiving a day's work."

" 'Tis but once a year, sir," McCoy ventured, and then, ill-advisedly letting a trace of excitement betray itself, "and after all, it is _Christmas,_ sir."

"Christmas? And what is Christmas to me?" Now at last some heat inhabited Lehnsherr's cold office, but one that McCoy would as soon have avoided. "Do you see me staying home for the Festival of Lights, for Passover, for the Feast of Esther? No, nor will you. I did not come to be where I am by indulging in idle merriment, and it's a poor thing that I'm expected to hand over my money that others may do so."

"You've no reason to celebrate the birth of Our Lord, that's right enough," McCoy said, with somewhat more spirit than was his custom. "Yet you've no reason, either, to disdain a day devoted to, to kindness and love and all the sweetness life has to offer. And as far as celebrating your Jewish holy days, why, I'd never mind it, you might leave the office to me any day you like—"

"Oh, yes, you would like that, I'm sure – for me to return next day and find the entire week's worth of coal burned to ash! And this nonsense about kindness and love – allow me to assure you that no coin ever entered a man's pocket by way of his open heart."

"That may be, sir," McCoy said, spine straight though he was near trembling with fear, "that may be. Christmas has certainly never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket. But I still believe it _has_ done me good, and _will_ do me good, and I say, God bless it!"

Lehnsherr stood and came slowly out from behind his desk. "Let me hear another sound from you, McCoy, and you'll keep your Christmas by seeking new employment."

McCoy gulped, but whatever reply he might or might not have made was lost in the sound of the door opening. A customer should surely have been a welcome relief to both parties, and McCoy was prepared to welcome him accordingly – yet Mr. Lehnsherr's reaction was quite a different thing. He went quite pale, and still, with his lips parted, as if he could not quite believe what he saw.

At first glance there seemed no reason for such a reaction. The gentleman coming in the door was perfectly respectable in appearance; his clothing was very fine, but not so fine as to make him a dandy; he was certainly not tall, but neither was he so small as to draw ridicule. His face was an appealing one, bright and open and warm, with a penetrating eye that reminded one that good humour by no means precluded a sharp wit. His hair, though still luxuriant to the casual eye, was in truth beginning to thin; he was of an age with Mr. Lehnsherr, but no one would have guessed it, due to the warmth and energy of his manner.

This gentleman, so marvelously out of place in the chilly cave of the counting-house, shifted the stack of books and papers in his arms so as to whip off his hat, and, not seeming to see Mr. Lehnsherr, bowed to Mr. McCoy.

"Good evening and a very Merry Christmas to you, sir! I am here on behalf of the Order of Victoria, as you can see here. At this festive season of the year, sir, it is more than usually desirable that we should make provision for the poor that suffer all around us. Many are in want of common necessaries, and any small donation—"

"Charles?" This, in a choked whisper, from the owner of the establishment, who still had not moved a hair's breadth since this charitable gentleman's arrival.

Now it was the visitor's turn to be suddenly still and white-faced, as if the chill of the room had frozen him through all at once. "...Erik?"

The two stared at each other in silence for so long that Henry McCoy was well on his way to a panic before either of them spoke again.

"It's so wonderful to see you again, Erik," said the stranger, in tones of breathless sincerity. "I can see the years have been kind."

"Can you?" McCoy had never heard his employer laugh before; he did not hear it now, in truth, only the bitterest approximation. "If so, they are the only thing."

"Erik..." The stranger stepped toward Mr. Lehnsherr, hand outstretched.

Lehnsherr stepped back, placed the desk between himself and the visitor. "I'm sure you're here for some specific business, Mr. Xavier."

Mr. Xavier looked as if he had been struck. "Right," he said after a moment. "Of course. As I was saying, then – Order of Victoria – collecting for charity, you see. Food and clothing for the poor. For Christmas."

"The poor? Are there no prisons, no workhouses?"

"Oh, plenty of those," said Mr. Xavier, with palpable sadness. "But many cannot go there, and many more would rather die."

"If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. My taxes support the establishments I have mentioned; that is the end of what I can be expected to pay."

"I see," Mr. Xavier murmured. "Well. I'm sure you have important business to attend to."

"I do," Mr. Lehnsherr said, taking a seat at his desk, "and I'll thank you to leave me to it."

"Good afternoon, then." Mr. Xavier went to the door and opened it – but he turned back with the knob in his hand, fast-fading sunlight gilding his face. Hank McCoy's heart near broke to see the desperate hope in the man's eyes; he knew his employer too well to imagine there was reason for it. "If you've no plans for the holiday, Erik, I beg you will come to Christmas dinner with my family. My father's old house, do you remember the way?"

No response from Lehnsherr, who was shuffling a stack of papers at his desk.

"Do come, Erik."

"That is quite impossible, Charles." His voice was hard as iron, yet, to Hank's ears, not so harsh as it might have been.

Mr. Xavier, nevertheless, looked quite as crushed as if the hard voice had given him a sentence of death. "Merry Christmas nevertheless," he said, "and to you, sir," tipping his hat to Hank as he went out the door, and Hank was quite certain he saw water glimmering in the man's startlingly blue eyes as he stepped outside.

When the door closed behind Charles Xavier, the counting-house seemed colder than ever before. The time had come to close for the night; the bemused clerk executed all the necessary tasks, and departed at a curt word from his employer, leaving Mr. Lehnsherr sitting alone in the deepening dark.


	2. Part the Second: The Ghost of Emma Frost

Seven years gone was Emma Frost, and in that time a fair measure of her partner's hair had faded to silver, and he had gathered the first traces of what promised to be deep grooves in his forehead and beside the ever-frowning mouth. Erik Lehnsherr little noted these changes, just as he little thought, anymore, of his deceased partner. In life he and Miss Frost had been as close as two such covetous old souls might be, and her death had, perhaps, shaken him more than the stony face shown at her funeral would indicate. But that was seven years ago, and Erik's life now contained few reminders of Miss Frost outside of her name on the sign at his door.

On this Christmas Eve, as Erik walked from his work-place to the grim rooms he called Home, he had less reason than ever to think of Emma Frost, for his mind was much occupied with suppressing what thoughts were nearest – thoughts of blue eyes, a warm voice, a kind hand he once had known as well as his own. Were he to fancy he saw a face, then, peering at him from the darkness, it would surely have been the face of that lost friend, and not the face of his late business partner.

Yet when – after a long walk through streets that bustled with merrymakers, none of which he took notice of – he raised his hand to unlock the door to his own residence, it was very definitively the face of Emma Frost, in place of the knocker on the door, that brought him to a dead halt.

A moment ago the knocker had been in shadow, but the thing that had taken its place had a cold, swamp-fire light about it. Wisps of pale hair rippled in some draft Erik did not feel. The expression was not angry or ferocious, no more frightening than Emma's face had been in life (though that was saying little enough). Though strange, its appearance would not have been especially terrible, except that it was entirely impossible.

He stared, blinked, rubbed his eyes. The face remained. In fact, Erik almost imagined it winked at him, as Emma had been so wont to do.

And then it was gone, and the knocker was simply a knocker.

The human mind is a resilient thing, and capable of truly astonishing self-deceptions. Erik was shaken enough to scratch the door with his key, finding his way to the lock; shaken enough to search his rooms, lighting lamps he had not touched in a year or more; shaken enough to cry out at the sight of his own hanging dressing gown, glimpsed from the corner of his eye. But when at last he was quite certain his chambers contained nothing out of the ordinary, it did not take him long to convince himself that he had seen nothing more at the front door, than the dancing shadow of a carriage as it passed. Emma Frost, after all, was dead, and would never be seen more.

Any observer, on watching Mr. Lehnsherr settle into the chair before his meagre fire, and dip his spoon into a saucepan of gruel, would have been forgiven for mistaking the man for one of his own unhappy tenants. The dark, drafty, ill-furnished room; the threadbare dressing gown; the thin and colorless gruel; all spoke of a harsh and desperate poverty that might have stirred pity in any human breast. None could have guessed, watching him stare into his fire, that the man might have put his hand to a half-crown at any moment, and a double-sovereign the moment after that. All his hoard of gold sat locked away, serving no purpose and bringing no joy, even to he that hoarded it; such was Erik Lehnsherr's greed, that he could not bear to spend a penny he might have kept, even on his own comfort. 

Miss Frost's greed had been of a different quality; Miss Frost had sought her own comfort with intense interest, had in fact devoted all her considerable powers of mind to it, wrapping herself in a cocoon of beauty, luxury and indulgence; and if she spared not a glance for a shivering beggar in all her days, at least when she left this life she had taken some joy from it.

Perhaps Erik himself was thinking of this difference, as he spooned gruel into his mouth by the fire, or perhaps he was thinking still of the door knocker, or even of the words 'Merry Christmas' that had been so often flung at him that day. Any of these might have been the cause of his sudden frown and mutter of "Bah! Humbug, all of it!"

At that moment, hardly after the words had left his mouth, a bell in the far corner of the room began to ring.

A system of bells had once existed in the drafty old building, before it was divided into a multitude of separate apartments – but the bell-pulls had all been removed many years ago, and Erik had never given a thought to the bell since the day he took up residence and noted its presence. He gave thought to it now, all astonishment and bewildered dread, as the bell made its first sound in decades – softly at first, a mere brush of sound – but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. Then the bells ceased, all together, from deafening clamor to utter stillness in the space of a thought.  
And after a moment of this silence, as frightening as ever the noise had been, a new sound reached Erik's ears – a clanking, dragging sound, as of iron chains being pulled down the corridor outside his door.

_Whatever nonsense this is,_ Erik thought, _I've had enough of it._ He got to his feet and faced the door, an iron poker in his hand. "Whatever vandal lurks there," he shouted, "whatever mean thief thinks to frighten as he robs, get yourself hence or face the wrath of a better man than you!"

"Oh, really, my pet," came a woman's voice, rich and low and elegant, one that had once been as familiar as any sound in Erik's world. "A better man, you say? Better than whom, I wonder?"

And through the door stepped a figure, gleaming pale as starlight – stepped through the solid oak of the door with its iron locks bolted, as if it had stood quite open. The fire in the grate leaped up, as if in surprise or greeting, then retreated to dim coals, and in the sudden plunging cold Erik could see his breath before his face.

The white figure before him was unmistakable; he had seen her face only minutes before, at his own front door. Even with no face at all he might have recognized the elegance of her walk, the fine style of her clothes, the intricate braids and curls of her hair. But a face she _did_ have, and it sported much the same expression it ever had when turned on her business partner – which is to say, genteel amusement, and a haughty sort of affection.

"Emma," said Erik, and the poker slid from his hand to clatter on the floor. The sound was not unlike the one he had heard already – clanking metal and dragging chains. The source now was obvious, more so with every step Emma Frost took into the room, for it was she who dragged the chains. They were locked tightly about her waist, fastened as well to her wrists and ankles, so that not one move could she make without the obstacle of their trailing weight. That weight was considerable, for the chains themselves bore burdens – cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.

"You know me, then," said the spectre.

"I know nothing," said Erik. "When one's senses have utterly turned upon their owner, how then can he say he knows aught of the world around him?"

"You are not mad, my dear, nor dreaming. It is in very truth the ghost of Emma Frost that stands before you."

Erik felt a laugh, giddy and disbelieving, trembling through his frame. "You were ever in some degree a mystery in life, Emma – yet now I find you are quite transparent." For he had discovered he could see his own bedroom door quite clearly through the pale gleam of her body.

The ghost's smile broadened. "You retain some wit and verve, then. I am glad to see it. It would be ever so tiresome to sit through hysterics before we could converse. Besides, I have little time." 

The smile vanished, then, and to Erik's eyes she was suddenly drawn, weary and grieving as he had never seen her in life. Compassion moved in his breast, rusted and rough with disuse. "Have a seat, Emma," he said. "Come have a seat at the fire... if you are able?"

"I am able, thank you," she said, and with a great clash and clatter, she moved to a chair by the fire, seating herself with all the elegance and grace her burdens would allow.  
Erik did the same, and tried to still his trembling hands. He was not a man prone to quivering terror, not Erik Lehnsherr – yet to have a spirit from the next world before him, sitting scarcely an arm's length away, he thought would surely unsettle the bravest of men. 

"How unusual this seems to you, my being here," Emma said, watching his traitorous hands with dark amusement. "You little know how often I have sat precisely here, invisible to your eyes – but perhaps that is no comfort to you?"

Indeed it was not, not in the least. "You are not here to harm me, I think," Erik said, more for his own reassurance than for a reply, "else you would have already done so."

"Indeed, I am here entirely to do you good. Many times I have sat beside you, as I said – never for long, I cannot linger, here nor anywhere – but enough to see how straitly you march still down the path we walked together when I lived. Erik, do you not wonder why I am fettered?" She lifted a hand, straining under the weight of its chain. "I wear the chain I forged in life, my pet. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. My poor Erik," she stretched a hand toward his face, almost touching, "you wear such a chain yourself, trailing behind you with every step. It was full as long and heavy as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. How quickly it grows!"

"But – but why?" Erik was not sure he believed any such thing, yet he clutched at his wrist, half-aware, as if feeling for a chain. "As punishment? For what sin? Our business was always honest, Emma, and I assure you I have not changed its practices in your absence!"

"No, not a jot!" Emma gave a brittle laugh. "You have changed nothing about the business we had, and well I know it. You neglect it as thoroughly as ever."

"Neglect!" Now some spark of anger entered Erik's spirit, warming him far better than the fire in his grate. "Shades see very poorly, then, Emma, for surely the last thing that can be said for me is that I neglected business!"

"Oh, the counting-house gets on well enough, certainly," said Emma. "But that was never your business, darling, nor mine either. Mankind was our business. Charity, mercy, forgiveness and love, they were our business. And in that we have utterly failed."

For some minutes Erik could only stare. He searched for some way to refute her judgment, but it could not be done. He had not been merely indifferent to the qualities she listed – he had mocked them in others, disdained them as weakness, as softness of character, as the natural progenitors of poverty and want.

"But Emma," he said at last, "if I have done little good, at least I have done no harm to my fellow men. Surely there cannot be too harsh a penalty for that?"

"No harm? You think you have done no harm, Erik, in wringing every possible penny from each person unfortunate enough to come into your power? You think – and there are so many examples – but you think your evictions, your fees and rising rents, your shoddy repairs, your merciless stranglehold on the purses of your tenants, have done no harm?"

"I have always worked within the law," Erik said stiffly.

"The laws of man answer to another set, rather higher," said the ghost, grimly. "Where the two conflict, I promise you, it is not ours that prevails. But hold..." She raised a hand to her brow, suddenly, and trembled, as if struggling against a great pain. The chains around her shifted and writhed. "I cannot stay," she said, breathless now. "I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit kept such narrow borders in life, that my doom now is to wander over all the world, unceasing – seeing all the joys I missed, and the sorrows I might have prevented – now that I can do nothing to influence either. One man only might I assist, and that is you, Erik." She stood, and once more stretched out a hand as if to touch him, but he felt only the bitter cold. "You have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Erik."

"What chance is that?"

"You will be haunted," said Emma, "by three spirits."

Erik tried to swallow the sick fear clotting his throat. "You have been ghost enough for me to handle, old friend. Must it be so?"

"Without their visits, Erik, you cannot hope to escape the path I tread." She began to move toward the door – backward, her chains preceding her, as if she were now their burden. "Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one, the second at the toll of two, and the third likewise at three."

"Perhaps I could expect them all at once, and have it over?"

She grinned, once more the Emma Frost he'd known, not only the pale and tortured spirit. "No, alas. Merry Christmas, my pet! Sleep well!"

And she was gone.


	3. Part the Third: The Ghost of Christmas Past

Erik did not expect to sleep a wink – how could anyone, not knowing what otherworldly horror he would see on waking? But the hours were long, and cold, and soon enough he went to his bed, if only to keep himself warm behind its curtains. And the next he knew, the clock on the wall was striking one – and his chamber was flooded with light, white as the sun on snow and shining through his bedcurtains as if they were tissue paper.

A lesser man's spirit might have quailed, a lesser man burrowed in his blankets and dared not move, but such a man was not Erik Lehnsherr. He had survived the visitation of one ghost this night; he would not cower before the next. Therefore he pulled aside the bedcurtain and stood to face what had come.

It was a woman – small and dark and lovely, with dark hair flowing loose. Hair and gauzy gown moved in some slow current of air that Erik could not perceive. On her head was a crown that seemed it must be made of crystal and stars; it was the source of the brilliant light that stung Erik's eyes. Even as he stood blinking, however, the light dimmed – or rather, one felt somehow, consented to withdraw, so as not to pain him. Even then the bedchamber was lit better than ever it had been since its construction had first closed it off from the sky, and Erik was startled to see its shabbiness and dirt in all its clarity.

"Are you," said he, turning to the figure of the little dark woman, "the ghost whose coming was foretold to me tonight?"

"I am," she said, her voice gentle, yet holding a ripple of amusement, and Erik rather prickled to think it was at his expense.

"Who are you, then?" he asked. "Did I know you in life? For in truth you look somewhat familiar."

The woman gave a secretive sort of smile. "You misunderstand. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. _Your_ past."

"There has, I think, been a misunderstanding," Erik said, prickled now indeed. "Due, I'm sure, to Miss Frost's lamentable sense of humor. I am a Jew, spirit. Christmas is nothing to me."

"I know," the spirit said serenely. "It is not your lack of Christianity, Mr. Lehnsherr, but your lack of mere humanity, that concerns me this night. It is at Christmas, when all those around you show to their best, that you show to your worst. It is at Christmas that you have had, and refused, the most opportunities to become a better man. And it is in reviewing the Christmases of your past that we might best trace the tragic progress of your character. Therefore, review them we shall." She held out her hand. "Come."

Erik looked at the hand in some trepidation. He was neither a trusting man, nor one who wished to meditate much on his past – nor one, for that matter, given to beginning journeys in the middle of a bitter cold night, wearing a dressing gown and slippers. "Where will we go?"

"Your past, Mr. Lehnsherr. Come." She took his hand, then, whether he willed it or not, and began leading him away – toward the window.

"Spirit, I beg you, wait!" Erik said, pulling back against the gently tugging hand. "I'm sure you may dance upon the winds as you please, but I am mortal – lead me out that window and I shall fall."

The spirit smiled. "No, indeed," she said, "hold tight to my hand and we shall both fly."  
On her shoulders, the white gown shifted, and made way for a pair of delicate, glimmering wings, as fragile and beautiful as stained glass.

Erik gaped, and narrowly resisted falling to his knees. "Are you an angel, then?"

"You may call me so, if you like," she replied with a grave curtsy. "Now take my hand, and let us fly."

 

They flew indeed, rushing over the rooftops of London, faster and faster until all was a blur, and then the blur was a silver fog, and the fog a light, flowing from the brilliance of the spirit's sparkling crown.

And then London was altogether vanished, and in its place – the front room of a snug little home, small but tidy and comfortable. Something simmering over the kitchen fire filled the room with a delicious scent that made Erik ache with memory. A man, woman, and child stood together before the distinctive shape of a menorah, and the little room resonated with low voices singing prayers.

"The bright, careless days of childhood were very brief in your life," said the Angel, following beside him as Erik crossed the room to see the little family's faces. "But here was one bright day. Not Christmas, as such, in this house – but the twenty-fifth of December, therefore falling in my purview, and a holy day still."

"My mother and father," Erik said, half-choking on the words. "And me – only look how small I am!"

The little boy before them, his tongue stumbling through the prayer, was rosy-cheeked and smiling, leaning back into his mother's arms. The mother and father – such dear faces, so long forgotten! Erik thought he might never look his fill of them – his mother's gentle smile; his father's stern face, softened now as he laid a hand on his little son's shoulder.

His mother guided her little one's hand through the lighting of the candles, adding one, two, three, four points of brightness to the warmth of the room, then kissed his cheek. The sweet devotion in her eyes as she gazed on his child-self stole Erik's breath away.

"You had such comfort and love as any would envy, in your earliest youth," the spirit observed at his elbow. "Alas, this was the last such happy time you shared; by the next Christmas your life had grown darker."

The light of her crown swelled, her stained-glass wings fluttered, and the candlelit room was gone before Erik could protest – how he would have liked to protest! But it had been replaced by the walls and windows of a school, its young pupils scurrying in all directions, scuffing the bright, thin layer of snow on the ground, shouting and laughing and calling to each other.

"Oh. My old school," Erik breathed. "I spent the latter part of my childhood here."

"And perhaps the better part," said the Angel, "but for the first; certainly you thought this place better than the orphanage."

"Indeed." Erik was overwhelmed by the rush of memory – so many sights and sounds and smells, so very long forgotten! "I fought my way here by tooth and claw, showing my worth to the schoolmaster when he visited Mr. Jenkins at the orphanage, begging him to take me on. And so he did, bringing me here based on my merit as a student, even though I could not pay."

Thinking of the schoolmaster rather chilled his spirits, but Erik kept his thoughts on the schoolboys running to and fro before him. "Why, there is Michael – and Albert – dear heaven, they are the merest babes!" Unthinking, he stretched out a hand to his dear friends as they ran past, then pulled it back again hastily. What would they think of this strange man, in his dressing gown in the snow, reaching out for them?

"Have no fear," said the Angel, "these are but shadows of your past. They have no consciousness of us, and can neither touch us nor be touched."

Erik watched Michael throw his arms around the man dismounting a nearby carriage; his father, come to take him home for Christmas.

"Goodbye, Michael!" cried Albert. "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you, Albert!" Michael called over his shoulder as he climbed into the carriage. "And give Erik my Merry Christmas as well if you can find him!"

Albert gave a rueful laugh. "You know _he_ won't want to hear it."

"Well, tell him all the same. Goodbye, Albert! Goodbye!"

"Goodbye!"

"And where was Erik," murmured the spirit at his elbow as the carriage drove away, "that he could not tell his friends farewell?"

The spirit's crown shone brighter, schoolyard seemed to blur around them, and they were within the school's walls, inside a chilly classroom where a single boy bent his head over a slate, watched over by a smartly-dressed man with a sharp face and cold, cold eyes.

Erik stared in fascination at the boy – himself, of course, as he had been at ten years of age, long-boned and ungainly, with a pinched, hungry face and a thin coat.

"Albert does not go to the train station for an hour yet," the boy said, tentative, hardly daring to glance up from his slate. "I am sure his parents would not mind, sir, if I were to... find myself able to accept their invitation after all?"

The headmaster, Dr. Shaw – there was a name Erik did not have to search his memory for – gave a chuckle, dry as summer grasses. "Come, now, Erik, you hurry so to throw away your advantage! What is Christmas to a Jewish boy, after all? While the others fritter away their time and their parents' money, letting as much knowledge as possible slip from their brains, you will be here – Working! Focused! Advancing! When those silly children come back from their holiday, they will find that you have outstripped them all. I will be much surprised if you are not at the top of the class, come end of term." Dr. Shaw stepped forward and ruffled the boy's hair, with all the honest affection of a harlot's caress – but the boy, having known nothing better, smiled up at him, timid and sweet. "Surprised," Dr. Shaw continued, "and, indeed, disappointed. For you know, Erik, that I brought you here in the belief that you would prove yourself my true apprentice. How can I keep you here if you prove yourself undeserving?"

The boy's smile faded. "I'll work very hard, Dr. Shaw."

"Of course you will. And if I am harsh with you at times, you will understand that it is only to make you stronger, to unlock your gifts. You have powerful gifts of intelligence and clear-eyed pragmatism, Erik. I expect you to use them. And when you do, I will reward you." He crouched beside the boy's desk, as if to tell him a secret. "This school, lad, is the least of my enterprises, and I with no son to groom as heir. Prove yourself to me, and you will share in them all – _if_ you can prove yourself properly dedicated to business."

"I will, Dr. Shaw," said the boy, and bent back to his slate with new vigor. Dr. Shaw stood but remained by the desk for some time, stroking the boy's hair.

Erik Lehnsherr in his dressing gown, Erik with his silver-streaked hair and grooved forehead, trembled with rage. He had had his revenge on Shaw, so many years ago. The man had died in poverty and despair, cursing Erik's name, and Erik had thought himself satisfied. But perhaps he would never be satisfied.

"He used me," Erik said between clenched teeth. "I was used and ill-used in ways that – Oh, never did a fiddler ply his trade with more skill than Sebastian Shaw on this instrument – that helpless boy. And in return, never intended me to be anything but his loyal calculating machine. Well, he did his work too well." Teeth still clamped tight together, Erik smiled, savoring the predator's delight of it. "All the torment he put me through _did_ make me stronger. Everything I am today, I owe to him."

The Angel, he saw, looked stricken and sad, and her gaze was not for the boy of memory, but for Erik standing beside her.

"Why do you look on me with pity?" Erik snapped. "I won. This man was my tormentor, but the final victory was mine."

"Perhaps it may be yet," said the spirit, and before Erik could question that statement, she once more took his hand. "Come. I would show you another Christmas."

"They were all much the same, in this place," Erik said, but as he spoke, the Angel touched a hand to her crown of stars and crystal, and the school dissolved into light and fog.

They were suddenly in the busy thoroughfares of a city, surrounded by the tumult of carts and coaches and passersby, and by the dressing of the shops it was clearly Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up

The Angel stopped at a certain warehouse door. "Do you know this place, Erik?"

"I do!" Erik cried. "I was apprenticed here. Dr. Shaw had gone abroad for a year, and left his protégés – Emma and myself – in the care of his old friend Azazelwig. Good old Azazelwig! Will I find him within?"

So saying, he walked straight through the door, and found himself in a scene of considerable disruption, all the usual activities of the warehouse suspended, folk dashing to and fro with considerable energy as they cleared everything from the middle of the floor and hung garlands, lamps, and holly at every point.

"Yo ho, there, boys, careful with the shutters!" called a jolly voice, and there he was, Erik's old master, the red-faced and dark-bearded Azazelwig, comfortably plump in his age, his voice still carrying some rough accent from his youth, though much smoothed by twoscore years in London. "Sweep the floor, there, excellent lad!"

"Of course, the Christmas party," Erik breathed, and felt a most unaccustomed smile break over his face. Had you asked him but a day earlier whether he had ever attended a Christmas party, he would have growled you nay and thought himself honest, so long had he gone without thinking of this night. It flooded back to him now, every detail a joy – the gleam of lamplight on the fresh-mopped floor, the chill breeze through the propped-open doors, the unharmonious clamor of the hired fiddlers tuning their instruments, the scents of mince pies and pudding from the table in the corner.

"Get you down from there, Miss Frost, and make yourself useful!" Azazelwig shouted, white teeth flashing in his ruddy face as he laughed, and Erik turned to see a young Emma – so very young! – seated delicately atop a desk that sat shoved against the wall, watching the goings-on with cool amusement. At her master's call she gave an elegant roll of her eyes, but moved to the banquet table to help arrange the food. To Erik's eye, which had known Emma so long and so well, for many years after this, her reluctance was all affectation; there was a spot of color high in each cheek that he would hardly see twice more in all her life.

The warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's night, and filling rapidly with those whom Azazelwig had invited to enjoy it – every friend and relation he had, every servant and employee, every neighboring businessman and all _his_ servants and employees – so that the cavernous building was not an inch too big; in fact, once the dancing began it seemed rather to swell at the edges.

"So great an expense, surely, for this event," the Angel observed mildly.

Erik snorted. "Little enough, compared to the man's earnings. Old Azazelwig was as merry a man as I ever met, and as kind in his peculiar way, but his brain was verily a surgeon's knife. It did not do to underestimate him in business dealings."

"If only more men could do likewise," said the Angel with all outward serenity, "they, too, might find that their own support need not come at the cost of others' happiness."

Erik would have liked to make a sharp reply, but before he could gather one, he caught sight of – himself. There, against the wall with a cup of mulled wine, was Erik's own younger self, wearing an uncertain frown even as his foot tapped to the music.

"What are you waiting for, you young fool?" Erik muttered, crossing the room to stand by his young shade. "Will you not dance, laugh, be merry? Why stand you back from the first beacon of warmth and joy you have beheld in many a year? And for many a year to come," he thought with sudden despair, and felt the first unconscious stirring of self-recrimination, knowing what had become of the bright-eyed young man before him.

Almost it seemed his memory-self had heard his urgings, for with a look of sudden resolve he set down his wine and crossed the room to hold out a hand to Emma. She took it, with the air of one humoring a child, and they joined the dancers, skipping and twirling 'til their breath near failed. How it lifted Erik's heart to see, and in seeing remember, that his life had not always been joyless and cold!

Erik's eye fell upon another couple in the dance, and he took a sharp breath. "Angel," he called, and found the star-crowned figure at his side as sudden as thought. "I do know your face – look there! You are the very image of Azazelwig's clerk, Miss Salvadore! Surely she was no spirit?"

The Angel's smile was enigmatic. "What do you know of Miss Salvadore?"

"Little, in truth – she left Azazelwig's service only some weeks after this party, I think, to marry some fellow with an odd name – Bohusk, was it? It must be that beak-nosed fright of a man she dances with now, for I remember thinking he was the ugliest creature I ever saw. I thought it powerfully stupid of her. Not many women are given a chance to show their worth in business, and she set hers aside. For what?"

"Love," said the spirit, and her countenance was warmer than it had been in all their acquaintance. "In a better world she would not have to choose, but given the chance for only one or the other, business or love, she chose the latter, and has never regretted it. It may startle you to know, Erik, that to many, the pursuit of money is only a means of keeping body and soul united, rather than a goal in itself; so it was for Miss Salvadore, and easy enough to give up in favor of her beloved, and the family they raised together. Miss Salvadore was given the gift of a true love, and held it tight with both hands."

"True love," Erik snorted. "The only thing sillier than a Merry Christmas. Humbug, every bit." 

Yet a tight sort of pain sat in chest as he watched Miss Salvadore and Mr. Bohusk dancing, all their looks for each other, each so radiant in each other's company that they might have stepped out of the shining crystals of the spirit's crown.

But the pain, he told himself, was nothing so ridiculous as envy or regret. The pain – and this surely became truer by the moment – was only because he was beginning to remember why he had taken such care to forget this Christmas Eve night.

"Young Mr. Lehnsherr! Come here, my boy, if you can tear yourself away from dancing!" boomed Azazelwig as the set ended, and both Eriks – one unknowing, one whose foreknowledge helped not at all – glanced up, and for the first time beheld Charles Xavier.

Erik trailed behind his young shadow, drawn helplessly as iron filings to a magnet, and they approached the little knot of conversation – Azazelwig; Mr. Quested (a tall, dark, laconic man whom the employees called Azazelwig's Silent Partner); and the young Charles Xavier, whom Azazelwig introduced as newly brought on at the nearby printer's. 

"Mr. Xavier here was just thanking me for a fine and generous party," Azazelwig said, grinning widely. "He has so many splendid things to say about generosity and – how did you put it, lad? Moral business practice! Of course I thought of you at once, Erik. I'm sure the two of you will have very stimulating conversation." With that, he and Quested slid off into the crowd, leaving the two younger men alone.

Charles, bemused but good-natured, shook his hand and launched into conversation; young Erik stared at first, but held his own soon enough. Their exchange ranged across the fine points of moral responsibility, business sense, a man's duty to support himself – eventually they made their way to the banquet table for mulled wine and titbits, and thence to a far corner to talk further, and all the while in spirited debate. Old Mr. Lehnsherr paid less attention to Charles's arguments than to the bright passion with which he made them. He had thought – on the rare occasions he allowed himself to think of Charles at all – that he surely remembered the man as kinder, warmer, more beautiful than he had been in truth, but if anything he found it was the opposite.

"Such a bleak approach to the world, my friend!" Charles said, and laughed, and shoved playfully at Erik's shoulder, and Erik found that he could hardly see the room now through the blur in his eyes.

"Watch yourself, fellows, you're beneath the mistletoe," Emma drawled, as she passed by on the arm of the evening's conquest, and both young men glanced upward in startlement.

"So we are," said Charles, laughing. "Well, nothing for it, then." He grasped Erik's shirtfront briefly and went onto his tip-toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

Young Erik stood dumbfounded a moment before they both dissolved into laughter; the elder Erik turned away.

"Will you take me home again, Angel?" he whispered. "I do not wish to see any more."

"No? You wished to see a great deal of him once," said the Angel. "There was no one whose company you valued so highly."

"I pray you will not remind me."

"You had much in common – he from an excellent family but cast out to make his own way, you an orphan with an increasing desire to separate from your benefactor. Both of you wished to prove yourselves, achieve independence. Such happy plans were made for the firm you would start together—"

"Enough, spirit!"

"Enough? Of him whom you called the best and brightest of men? He whose friendship was the dearest of your treasures? Do you recall how much you dreaded that he might marry? _Surely_ he would marry, a man so loving and so beautiful, and then you would lose that place nearest his heart where you always wished to be. You even half-feared him finding his runaway sister, lest he love her more than you—"

"Why are you cruel to me?" Erik's voice was iron. "Is there nothing better for spirits to do than torment helpless mortals?"

"Erik, I am as saddened as you to see the griefs of your past, but they are not of my making. Come. There is one Christmas more that you must see."

"No," Erik said, for he knew which one this must be, and would as soon pass through a fire as relive it – but the spirit's crown flashed, her wings flickered, and Azazelwig's warehouse dissolved into fog and silver light.

Erik caught a last glimpse of himself and Charles, smiling and entirely intent on one another in the lamplight, before the Christmas party faded from view.

 

"What have you done, Erik?"

Erik knew this place well, even two-and-twenty years since he saw it last. Here was the garden path behind the printer's, where he and Charles had often walked, carrying cups of lemonade in summer, hot roasted nuts or sticky buns in winter. Winter it surely was now, every twig coated in ice, the grass crunching and shattering underfoot. Erik thought he felt the cold burning in his throat and lungs, for all that he was not a part of this world. Perhaps that was why he could not breathe.

Charles's question hung on the air, heavier than the damp, or the few sluggish snowflakes, heavier surely than lead, and Erik could not bear to look at him, at the horror and accusation in his eyes. He turned his gaze to the other figure on the path – his former self, wearing his first fine coat, high-collared black velvet. His last fine coat, Erik realized, for he had never bought another; when that one at last became too disgracefully tattered for even him to wear, he bought another secondhand, of considerably lower quality, and wore that one even now.

"What have I done?" repeated the young Erik in his finery. "Bought a new coat, I suppose." Casual words, doing little to hide uneasy defiance and dread; Erik could see them as clearly as he remembered feeling them.

"Yes, I'm sure that's the least you can afford now," Charles said with a joyless laugh. "Congratulations, my friend. Your soul fetched a hefty price."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Did you intend to ever tell me? Did you not think I would question your sudden wealth? But I suppose it has not been so sudden as that – Miss Frost tells me you have about this for some time."

Erik's face hardened. "Miss Frost, then."

"Oh, yes, she told me all. How you bought all the man's debts, and pressed him like the hounds of Hell, until your coup de grace this very morning – having secretly bought the building in which he lived, to serve him a notice of eviction on Christmas Day!"

"He himself taught me to think of Christmas as another business day," said Erik, with a smile that unsettled even his elder self. "One I might use to advance myself beyond my competitors."

"Miss Frost thinks it a very grand joke, of course, and I would expect no less from her. From you, though – I expected very different things from you."

"You act as though I had killed a man."

"You have!"

"Shaw was no man, but a dragon to be slain for the good of all. And in any case I never lifted a hand to him."

"Yes, there seems no doubt it was a suicide. Yet I would maintain that you strangled him, Erik – bit by bit and shilling by shilling."

"That is how the game is played. He himself taught me the rules."

"And how well you've learned to follow his footsteps."

Erik watched his former self's face darken with anger. "Will you, even as little as you know of his sins – which I promise you is not the half – will you argue he deserved better?"

"No." This was hardly a whisper. Despite himself Erik turned to look at Charles at last, and was surprised to see the brightness of tears in his eyes. Had he forgotten that? Or had he been too angry to notice in the first place? "I know he deserved ruin and worse. It is not his fate that concerns me, but yours. The vicious satisfaction I see in your eyes – oh, my friend, I would not see you become a man who takes joy in tormenting others." He reached for Erik's arm, but Erik drew back.

"No," he said, "you would see me lie down and take whatever treatment others see fit to offer me."

"Certainly not! Erik—"

"I am an honest man of business. I did nothing outside the law."

Charles drew himself up with a slow breath. Erik, trusting to his ghostly invisibility, stepped closer, half-raised a hand as if to touch his friend, but let it fall again. 

"Nevertheless," Charles said, soft but unyielding, "I cannot do such business. And I cannot do business with any man that could. Erik, will you—"

"I suppose that's all there is to say, then."

Charles visibly reeled, and how, how had Erik not seen it? It was so clear, in Charles's shocked and sorrowful expression, that he had not at all intended to sever their acquaintance. It was Erik's own words that had done that, Erik who had hurried to reject before he could be rejected. What had Charles been in the midst of asking, when Erik so sharply cut him off? Perhaps he would have asked only a promise that Erik do no more such business. Whether he would or could have promised that, Erik could not say. But he might have liked to have the chance.

"Yes, I suppose so," Charles said now, and if his voice wavered, his companion showed no sign of perceiving it. "I suppose that _is_ all there is to say. Oh, Erik." He stepped forward and embraced him, and such was his former self's stiff pride and anger that Erik was surprised he allowed it, despite his own memory's attestation that the gesture nearly brought him to his knees – that and the kiss to his cheek. "May you be happy in the life you have chosen," Charles said, and walked away.

"Charles, wait!" But the words he should have spoken were many years too late, and went unheard, and when Erik would have pursued him, the Angel touched his arm in gentle restraint. Erik stilled, and watched his friend disappear down the garden path, while behind him his former self strode in the opposite direction, stumbling in his agitation.

"I heard of him, betimes," Erik said, when Charles was out of sight. "He did not stay on at the printer's, but found a situation at a school in Scotland. When his stepfather died, it came out that the cast-off son had inherited quite a bit, and had it kept from him despite the law; so he came back to London and took up his father's house..."

"He and the long-dreaded wife," the spirit finished, when he could not.

"Do not speak of her!"

"She was a great comfort to him," said the spirit. "I see many a happy Christmas between them, loving and gentle. But Moira has been gone now these four years, and despite the merry company of their children, loneliness hangs ever heavier on his shoulders."

"Be silent!"

"This was the man who came to you this Christmas Eve, who joyed to see you with no regard to your old quarrel, who offered kindness and friendship and was rebuffed."

"Leave me!" Erik demanded. "Take me back. Haunt me no longer!" The Angel's crown glittered and shone with pure light; in his rage Erik tore it from her head and cast it to the earth.

Instantly, he was in darkness, absolute as the abyss; only slowly did traces of starlight come to him, illuminating the shadowy borders of his own bedroom, his own bed. Erik crawled beneath his blankets, trembling, to stare at the darkness in lieu of sleep.


	4. Part the Fourth: The Ghost of Christmas Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because seriously, if Logan were British, he'd be Cockney.

Erik had forgotten that he was to expect two more ghosts; he lay alone in the cold and dark, trying to close his ears to the memory-sounds of dancing and fiddling, of Chanukah prayers, of Shaw's voice and Charles's, _May you be happy in the life you have chosen_ and the ghost of a kiss to his cheek.

And then the clock struck two.

Instantly there was light again in the dark room – not the merciless brilliance of the Angel's crown, but a gentler glow, warmer to the eyes and to the soul. Erik felt as though that light might feed a hungry belly as well as meat or bread. It came, he realized, from the next room; after waiting some moments to be approached, Erik left his bed and, taking a moment to put on shoes and a coat (for who knew what further journey lay before him), followed the light to its source.

The door opened on his own parlor, right enough, but it was a room transformed. The walls and ceiling were so hung with holly, mistletoe, and ivy that it looked a perfect grove. Such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that poor hearth had never known since Frost & Lehnsherr acquired the building. Heaped upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, poultry, mince-pies, plum-puddings, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, sugared cakes and bowls of punch, that filled the chamber with steam and mouth-watering odors. 

In easy state upon this throne of abundance sat a rather strange-looking man – short in stature, but powerfully built, with a quantity of black hair that seemed to stand out startlingly from his head. He wore a simple green robe bordered in white fur, which hung so loosely that his chest lay bare (revealing yet more wild hair) as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. In one hand he held a particularly succulent-looking leg of goose, one bite already taken, and in the other a large cigar, its end glowing scarlet.

"Are you the spirit," Erik asked, trying not to betray his doubt, "who was to come on the strike of two?"

The figure glanced up from his meat. "About time you wandered in," he said, his voice carrying the jaunty tones of the Cockney, and leaped down from his seat to stand quite close to Erik, examining him minutely – in fact Erik almost suspected him of _sniffing_ him. "Yer a choice one," the man said with a snort, and took a long draw on his cigar. The smoke smelled nothing like tobacco, but rather cinnamon and pine; the man sneered at the cloud of it, as if quite accustomed to something else.

"If ye ain't figured it yet," said he, around the cigar, "I be the Ghost of Christmas Present. Do I look familiar at all?"

"No, I daresay I've never seen the like of you before. Nor do I expect to again."

The ghost grinned, and Erik had to grant him as alarming a show of teeth as he himself had ever beheld in a looking-glass. "Ye're wrong on both counts, Lehnsherr. You've seen me before, and shall again. Spirits, now," he paused to tear another bite from his goose leg, "'aving no form o' their own, must borrow mouths ter speak through – and I the man chosen best to borrow. I gave 'em leave for it, more fool I." He gave the cigar another sour look.

"Gave leave?" Erik was thoroughly startled. "What I see is a real man, then?"

"Aye, and one you knew. Our meetin' was brief, yet I expect you'll remember it by and by. To the purpose, then, and get it over! For tonight, at least, I am the Ghost of Christmas Present; and I 'ave lessons for you to learn."

"You would not be the first tonight; my soul still stings, as under a schoolmaster's switch, from the lessons taught by your predecessor," Erik admitted. "Yet I am unsure what revelation you spirits would lead me toward, dedicated to Christmas as you are. I am a Jew, and you will not make me otherwise."

"Emma said you'd kick a fuss!" the Ghost chuckled. " 'ave no fear, Lehnsherr, we don't aim ter make ye Christian. That ain't me purpose at all."

"What is your purpose, then?"

"To show you the goodness of a day ye've long sneered at, and perhaps improve yer character thereby. We can hardly make it worse."

Erik rather nettled to hear this. "You would torture me into virtue? For thus far the spirits have shown me only my losses and griefs, and joys I had once but no longer. If you can show me better things, I will gladly see them."

"Oh, you'll see merriment wi' me," said the spirit, showing his teeth, "all ye can stomach. 'Old tight to me robe and we're off." He gave his cigar a regretful look, then flipped it in his hand; instantly it was no cigar but a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn. He held it high, and when Erik took a hesitant grip on his sleeve, stepped forward with the torch's light flaring around them.

When the flash of light faded, Erik's parlor was gone, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning.

This time of a Christmas morning, it was Erik's custom to be still a-bed, saving on fuel for the fire by staying in his blankets until the sun was quite high. He might then seek his bread and cheese, and his quills and ledgers, and use the free day in book-keeping and letter-writing (business letters, of course, for he had no friends to write to), perhaps in devising some new strategy to improve his business. He might pass all of Christmas Day without opening the shutters of his bedroom window, much less stepping outside the door.

So the cheery bustle of the streets was a surprise to him, as it would have surprised no one else. How he stared, to see the people laugh and shout and sing as they hurried about, scraping snow from roofs and doorways, tossing snowballs at their friends, loading their baskets with rolls and plums and raisins from the shops that sat half-open, just one or two shutters down that folks might have their Christmas dinners complete before the tolling of the church bells called them away. The customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, all in the best humour possible. Once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, the Ghost shook his torch over them, sprinkling a sort of sweet-smelling incense. Their good humour was restored directly, for they said it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day.

Only one pair of disputing fellows were not quieted, even by a double-sprinkling, but continued to argue and shove. Erik could only watch in bemusement as the Ghost of Christmas Present stepped forward scowling, and administered his torch, with considerable force, to each man's head. At this the fellows at last wandered away from each other, looking somewhat dazed. The Ghost looked extremely satisfied with his efforts.

This same torch served again, for the innumerable patchworked people who carried their dinners to the bakers' shops to be cooked in borrowed ovens, they having none of their own. Each of these poor revellers received the torch's sprinkled incense on their dinners as they passed, and those dishes immediately looked and smelled so savory that Erik could not help regretting his own ghostly state, that made him unable to partake.

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?" asked Erik.

"Aye. Me own invention." 

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"

"Any, but a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Erik.

"It needs it most." The Spirit gave Erik a sharp look. "You ort to recognize a good many o' these folk. You see their rents every month."

Erik, sensing that his instinctive reply of "my tenants' business is their own, and none of mine" would earn him a rather dark response, said nothing.

"Yer own clerk, too, could make use o' me," the Ghost continued, still sharp-eyed.

"Oh, no, surely we needn't bother—"

The Ghost clamped a hand 'round Erik's wrist. "Off we go, then."

They passed through the streets, much more swiftly than Erik could have walked, and he was secretly glad of the spirit's iron grip, lest he be left behind. As they went he couldn't help looking around them in wonder at the widespread merriment and cheer of the populace. How many years had he missed the chance for so pleasant an outing?  
But would he have considered it pleasant? Without the memory of his happiness at Azazelwig's Christmas party fresh in his mind, would he have only sneered and stomped, to find himself out of doors in such a rabble?

Some part of his heart still stood hard against the idea that he had been living his life in anything less than the proper manner, but oh, how miserable he had been all these years! And slowly lost his awareness of it, like a hand grown so frozen it no longer felt the cold that killed it. Emma's chains, too, bore thinking of; if he was indeed in danger of suffering the same fate, giving his clerk a paid Christmas with a gladder heart seemed small price to pay.

And speaking of his clerk...

"The McCoy residence," said the spirit, brandishing his torch at the door. They stood, Erik saw, in a street where no one of consequence in the world would have need to go; the houses were cramped and crooked and crowded together, their upper stories sometimes knocking against each other like elbows at an over-full table. The house before them was no better than its neighbors, though gaily done up in ribbons and holly and branches of evergreen. "Grand, innit? And fair enough, innit, that a man what works himself blind like Hank McCoy, should be able to keep his wife and three children in such excellent comfort? Step inside, gov'nor, and see the fruit o' yer bounty."

The Ghost's gaze was a frank challenge, and in it Erik saw some familiarity at last; he _had_ encountered this man before, though he still did not recall the circumstance. How was it that this spirit went about glaring and snarling so? Should not the Ghost of Christmas Present be a jolly man, if the day were so sweet and cheery? The spirits, he had said, borrowed other forms to communicate their purpose, whatever form they thought best. Was there something about Erik, then, that demanded an unpleasant ghost?

In any case, Erik took the challenge given, and made his ghostly way through the door into the crooked little house.

At the stove stood a woman, surely Mrs. McCoy, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence. She was a comely woman, all gold curls and rosy cheeks, nine-and-thirty if a day and her face lined with weariness and worry, but pretty still in a way that caught strangely at Erik's heart, as if she were lit from within by some secret he did not share.

"Lay the cloth on the table, Anna!" she called, without looking up from the potatoes she stirred. "Kurt will be here with the goose any moment."

"Hurrah! The goose!" A little girl with a peculiar white streak in her auburn hair hurried to spread a bright-colored cloth over the rather battered table. The entire house, really, was rather battered, from the frayed edge of the table-cloth to the cracked plaster on the walls. "Shouldn't Father and Little Charlie be home soon, then?"

"Aye, they might've been here already," said Mrs. McCoy, and went to the window to look out. "Here they come now! Stir those potatoes, Anna!"

Erik was struck by the light in the woman's eyes as she watched her husband and child approach. Though she hurried to put out plates on the table, she watched the door every moment, when they could not have been gone more than the morning. Erik tried to recall if anyone had ever anticipated his return with such delight; not Emma; perhaps Charles...

The door opened, and there was Henry McCoy, in his familiar bundle of threadbare clothing, all brushed up to look seasonable, his eyes far brighter behind their spectacles than Erik could recall having seen them. With one hand he dragged something behind him, rattling along on wheels; with the other hand he balanced a small boy upon his shoulder. "Merry Christmas!" man and boy shouted together, and laughed as wife and sister fell upon them in cries of delight. 

Young Anna took the contraption from her father's hand; it proved to be a wheeled chair, as Erik had seen used for invalids. She settled her tiny brother into it and pushed him, chattering excitedly, to a spot by the fire that seemed to be for his particular use. The boy was terribly small and thin, pale as the snow dusting his hat, but the cold and his own excitement lent spots of color to the milky cheeks. His blue eyes were bright, but he coughed a good deal and seemed to tremble with every movement.

"Now, now, don't get too excited, Little Charlie," said his sister in concern, after a particularly deep series of coughs. Erik was just thinking that there was something in the tiny fellow's bearing that made it impossible to address him as simply Charlie, when the name itself bore fully into his mind. Charles was hardly an unusual name, but those bright blue eyes, the animated manner... how strange they should be so similar!

In the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. McCoy were standing over the potatoes together, the wife attempting to stir while her husband teased and tickled her, retreating in feigned terror from her laughingly brandished spoon. When the spoon returned to the pot, Henry stepped forward again, to put his arms around his wife's waist and murmur in her ear.

"And how does my dearest bird this morning? How flies my raven?"

"Better with you here," she said with a happy sigh, "and better still when Kurt returns with the goose! If he dawdles so long it grows cold on the way, I'll have his ears, and you won't talk me out of it this time!"

"Indeed, I would not dare to try!"

Raven, he called her. "Spirit," Erik said faintly, "Surely it is strange that he calls her his raven? It cannot be on account of her hair..."

"Aye, it'd make an odd pet name for such a golden bird," said the spirit, reaching past Erik to shake his torch over the potato pot, and then around the room entire. "It's her proper name, in fact, the one 'er parents gave her. Uncommon, innit? But you've heard it once before." He raised an eyebrow at Erik.

"Charles's sister, the runaway. Her son's resemblance – surely named in her brother's honor – but Charles cannot know her circumstances!"

"'E's not had a word from her in five-and-twenty years. Hidin' from her stepfather, she be, not knowing of his death, and too afeared to come out, however much she miss her brother. And her brother, he don't know a thing – not about her poor but honest 'usband, or the two-man stews she waters to feed five, or the sickly babe she prays fer night and day." With a flick of his hand, the Ghost turned his torch back to a cigar, and drew on it deeply. "Nor did _you_ know, you what might have fed that kid every day from your pocket change. You chose to know nothing of how far the man's salary was to stretch. And now that ye know?"

Erik swallowed hard, and said nothing.

Until a sudden thought prompted him to ask, "Did not Hank recognize his wife's name, when Charles came to the door yestereve?"

"Nay, he never knew his wife's true name," said the Ghost. "She gave 'erself as Darkholme, so the stepfather could not hunt her down. She knows aught of her brother, nor he of her, and so it will stay without the intervention of one who knows them both." Again the dark look of challenge, as if the spirit had little faith in Erik's power to reunite them.

The voice of Mrs. McCoy – Raven Xavier that was – distracted Erik from any reply. "How was Little Charlie at church, Hank?"

"As good as gold, and better," said Hank. "He gets thoughtful, poor lad, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see." 

Erik told himself firmly that Christian claptrap meant nothing to him. All the same, it said a great deal about the boy, did it not, that he would wish to be a source of comfort to others, even in his affliction? A thoughtful lad, indeed, and a sweet nature, when suffering might as easily have turned him selfish and resentful. As Erik had cause to know.

"He is growing stronger," Mrs. McCoy said. "The new doctor has done him a great deal of good, I think." But there was more hope than belief in her voice, and though Henry quickly voiced his agreement, Erik saw nothing of either in his eyes.

The door opened once more, and in came a young man of some dozen years, proudly bearing a goose that steamed in its dusting of snow. Instantly the house was in happy uproar, a sudden flurry of dishes and cutlery to the table and an impromptu rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Then all were seated, grace was said, and every plate heaped with goose, and stuffing, and potatoes, and apple-sauce, and all manner of unusual treats, all well-dusted from the spirit's torch. The children laughed as they sneaked tidbits off each other's plates, Little Charlie not least, and once Mrs. McCoy swatted her husband with her spoon when he attempted to trade his empty cup for her half-full one. When but one buttered roll remained, Hank granted it to Little Charlie, who looked triumphant – but after one bite passed the rest beneath the table to Anna, who had been bitterly disappointed, and who kissed her brother's hand in joy at the gift.

When dinner was all consumed, then came – the pudding! The pudding like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half a splash of ignited brandy, and topped with a twig of Christmas holly – oh, a wonderful pudding! Hank McCoy said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by his beloved since their marriage. Mrs. McCoy said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. Erik thought perhaps the elder son, Kurt, might have liked to – there was some flicker of sadness in his eyes – but it would have been flat heresy to say anything of the sort. Any McCoy would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, and cleaned up after, and the family all drew round the hearth with apples and oranges and a shovel-full of chestnuts to put on the fire. Hank poured out hot cider into the family's best tumblers (Mrs. McCoy sharing with Anna, and Kurt with Little Charlie, as there were not enough to go 'round), and raised his own glass high.

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us."

"God bless us!" they echoed, with Little Charlie on the end adding, "God bless us, every one!"

Little Charlie had been lifted from his wheelchair to sit in his father's lap, and Hank held him close, pressing a kiss every few minutes to his wan brow, as if to be sure the boy was still there, as if he dreaded that he might be taken from him. After the excitement of the family feast, the child looked paler than ever; he smiled sweetly, but seemed to have hardly the strength to clasp his father's hand.

"Spirit," said Erik through a tight throat, "tell me if Little Charlie will live."

The spirit gave him another of his dark, level looks, snorting smoke from his cigar. "Look at 'im, Lehnsherr. Wot do you think?"

"They said the new doctor—"

The spirit shook his head. "Rubbish and ye know it. If something don't improve for 'im fast, none other of my race will find 'im here. Wot then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!"

Erik recoiled from his own words as if burned. How could any man have spoken them, much less himself?

"Mr. Lehnsherr!" said Hank, raising his glass again; "a toast to Mr. Lehnsherr, the Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. McCoy, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it."

"My dear," said Hank, "the children. Christmas Day." 

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Lehnsherr. You know he is, Henry. Nobody knows it better than you do, love." 

"My dear," was Hank's mild answer, "Christmas Day." 

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said Mrs. McCoy, "not for his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! – he'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Little Charlie drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Lehnsherr was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Lehnsherr the Baleful being done with.

"Perhaps," Erik said, "it is time for us to move on."

"Aye," said the Ghost, "the night wears on, and there's more for you ter see."

Erik took hold of the Ghost's sleeve, and let himself be led away – but kept his eyes on Little Charlie to the last, now drowsing against his father's chest with his brilliant blue eyes half-lidded, until he was out of sight.

 

The Ghost of Christmas Present led him swiftly through the streets once more, now into an area of the town where Erik had as little call to go as the McCoys' crowded lane – the houses of the well-to-do, those who celebrated Christmas in comfort.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Erik and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. All along the streets folks walked in knots of conversation, hooded and fur-booted, on their way to some gathering or other, and as they reached their destinations friends and children ran shouting from the doorways to greet them. The Ghost sprinkled his blessings here as generously as ever, incense sparkling on hat-brims and upturned faces, and once he stopped to help a struggling girl latch her shoe, though she little knew it.

" 'elpless kids," the spirit muttered, all irritation, "get their fool selves left be'ind in the dark and froze ter death, and serve 'em right, it would."

Erik raised an eyebrow, but made no comment.

He recognized the house where the spirit led him, though he had been there but once, and not stopped there, only passing in a cab as he and Charles made their way to some other destination. It was Charles's father's house, pointed out to him then as the inheritance denied him, now home to the cast-out son after all, and a beacon of light and warmth in the rapidly chilling night.

At the door to this house, Erik dragged his heels to a stop, and released the spirit's sleeve, determined to go no further – but the Ghost would have none of it. He turned upon Erik swift as an eel, and before Erik could draw breath, he found his arm twisted up behind himself, and the end of a burning cigar held close to his eye.

"This 'ere is what I do, gov'nor," the Ghost said, perfectly tranquil. "I'll carry out me duty, as well now as I ever 'ave, which is well indeed. Are ye ready to come along?"

Erik felt a hot flare of rage at being threatened, but while he was still deciding whether and how to resist, he found himself simply shoved forward through the door, and released to stand on his own.

A merry group of men and women sat before the hearth there, eating gingerbread and cream, and Charles Xavier was chief among them. For many long minutes Erik could not tear his eyes away from Charles, firelight gilding his face and the velvet of his coat, his hands moving animatedly as he spoke. He had noted, when Charles came into the counting-house, how lightly the years seemed to have touched him, and he could not but note it again now; his hair might be thinner, his waist softer, but his face was remarkably little changed, and its light of kindness and wit not changed at all.

Gradually Erik gave some mind to the faces of Charles's companions. A few minutes' attention to the conversation revealed the graceful ginger-haired lady to be a Miss Potts, the two well-dressed bachelors Mr. Stark and Mr. Steven Rogers, and the married couple, distinctly less rich in dress but no less merry for it, were a Dr. Banner and his wife Betty. 

"Lonely bachelors wi'out family," the spirit said, gesturing to Stark and Rogers. "A single lady in much the same state. And this pair o' newlyweds, with naught to 'em but their wits, what otherwise would 'ave no means to make merry. These is the folk our Mr. Xavier takes in fer Christmas Day."

There were also young people, Erik saw, a girl and three boys, old enough to be humored in adult company for a while. The tallest was a dark-skinned lad, which rather caught the eye, and Erik was startled to hear him address Charles as Father. Trust Charles, he supposed, to take in a foundling.

"I wish encountering old friends could always be so pleasant as that," said the one among the boys who most resembled Charles, apparently in response to whatever tale Dr. Banner had been telling. "Father saw an old friend last night, but it left him in very low spirits indeed, so I cannot help thinking the fellow a poor friend."

"Never mind, David, do hush," Charles said.

"What's this, then?" Mr. Stark seemed quite offended that anyone should make Charles feel low.

"Nothing, Tony, leave it be."

"It was old Mr. Lehnsherr, the moneylender," said David, who seemed heartened by an adult sharing his indignation. "I didn't even know he and Father were friends, but he invited him to Christmas dinner, and the old skinflint refused him, quite rudely!"

"That is quite enough, David," Charles snapped. "I told you to leave it be, and so you shall unless you want to go to bed this instant."

"Besides," observed Mrs. Banner mildly, "you cannot know he was rude, if you were not there."

"Certainly he can," Mr. Stark said, "for that monstrous old miser is rude at all times, to all comers. I, for one, am quite glad not to find him here. Whatever possessed you to invite him? How are you even acquainted?"

"Come, let us talk of something else," said Miss Potts, eyeing Charles's miserable expression. "Perhaps a song!"

"Yes, let us have a song!" Charles said eagerly, and the room filled with a cheery round of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

The Ghost joined in loudly with the singing, idly sprinkling his torch about, while Erik studied his shoes intently.

The song had hardly ended before there was a knock at the door, and another guest joined the party.

"Logan! I'm so pleased you made it after all," Charles cried, and as the newcomer battled free of snow-covered wrappings, Erik rather jolted to recognize the man's face as identical to that of the spirit beside him.

"Recognize us, then?" said the spirit, grinning around his cigar as his other self was given another of that indulgence and a seat at the fire. "No? P'raps this will jog yer memory..." He proceeded to give Erik a very vulgar, not to mention anatomically impossible, set of instructions.

"You!" Erik cried. "Why, you are that man Charles was so set upon hiring, for the firm we were to build—"

"I warn't interested in working for any but me own self, then," the spirit chuckled. "Logan warn't, rather, for I'm not _entirely_ he. But as you see, 'e's learned better."

"He works for Charles?" Erik stepped closer, watched the wild-haired man laugh and push Charles away when he would have fussed over him.

"He does, and finds, for all his snarlin', that the comforts of 'aving companionship and a common venture are well worth the irritants." The Ghost chuckled at his host's stubbornness, watching as said gentleman exchanged some joke with Charles's red-haired daughter, who seemed uncommonly glad to see him.

Companionship and a common venture, Erik thought. He had had little of either since he parted ways with Charles – and none at all since Emma's death. Looking about at this happy, comfortable room, it seemed incredible that he had borne coming home each day to his own grim and lonely chambers. How could he stand to do so ever again?

The merry group sang some more, while Mr. Logan finished his cigar and another batch of chestnuts popped and crackled in the fire, and then at Mr. Stark's suggestion began a game of blind man's bluff.

It was clear early on that despite Dr. Banner's checking of the blindfold, Stark was no more blind than if he had eyes in his boots. His pursuit of Miss Potts was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains – wherever she went, there went he. He wouldn't catch anybody else, however close they wandered. Miss Potts often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her, his pretending that it was necessary to pat her hair and face and hands, was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, Mr. Rogers stepping up as the next blind-man, they hid together from him behind the enameled screen in the corner.

With the room in such uproar, Erik had found himself instinctively dodging and running with the rest of them, even crying once that Stark was a bloody cheat and a disgrace. He scarcely knew how hard he was laughing until he abruptly stopped.

He had ducked behind a curtain to evade Rogers's outstretched, fumbling hands, and was peeking around the edge of it to see (quite unnecessarily, of course) whether it were safe to come out, when Charles opened the curtain from the other side to hide himself. Quite suddenly, he and Erik were mere inches apart, though only one of them knew it.

And that quickly, Erik entirely lost the trick of breathing in and out. Charles's eyes were bright and cheeks red with running about, breath coming hard with exertion and laughter. The scattered silver threads in his hair glinted only inches from Erik's face. As Erik had felt the vicious cold of the memory of their last quarrel, so now he felt the warmth of a snug parlor, and a body enclosed behind curtains, smelling gently of ginger and cider and its own clean skin. For a moment Charles looked past him as two of his sons rushed by, and by an accident of angles Erik could almost pretend it was himself Charles was looking at. If Erik – if only Erik were truly there, he might touch—

_Oh,_ said some tiny voice, like a bell rung deep in the hidden places of Erik's chest, _Oh,_ though it did not dare to give a name to its realization.

A moment later Charles burst out from behind the curtain, laughing at Rogers, who had caught Mrs. Betty Banner in rather an improper manner and was in an agony of apology over it, while the lady herself tried to reassure him. Erik was left alone behind the curtain to recover his composure.

The merriment was interrupted by the chiming of the grandfather clock – the eleventh hour, and but sixty minutes of Christmas Day remaining.

"Well, there it is, darlings," Charles said, clapping his hands. "Darwin, David, Scott, Jean, remember you promised to go straight to bed without a murmur, if I would only give you 'til eleven!"

This promise was broken in some degree by at least two of the company, who did in fact let a murmur or moan pass their lips. Nevertheless, the four young people trooped obediently to the door, and gathered the spirit to return the gay goodnights wished them by the company.

At the chime of the quarter hour – nearly before the company could get properly rowdy again – Charles excused himself to go and look in on the children, and make sure all were safely a-bed.

Erik hesitated at the foot of the hall stairs as Charles ascended, and heard Stark murmur from the half-open door to the parlor that he had never known such a devoted father as Charles.

"And not only to his own blood," added friend Rogers. "I've never seen him differentiate between his own brood and the foundlings. That is a rare man indeed. Some would not even call it proper, but I for one will not condemn a man for being too kind and even-handed to the children in his care."

" 'ow many's he got running about, all told?" asked Mr. Logan – the fleshly one, not the Spirit at Erik's side. "I'd say five-and-twenty, from the bedlam they make, but I don't think I've yet seen them all together."

"Five are his and poor Moira's, and another five taken in – though I should not be surprised to see that last number grow."

Could Erik bear to see Charles's tenderness toward Moira's children? He glanced over his shoulder at the Ghost, who only jerked his head toward the staircase in clear expectation. Erik drew a deep breath and followed Charles up the stairs.

They looked into one bedroom after another, finding most of them dark, with blanketed shapes breathing softly. Red-haired Jean, though – who had perhaps a dozen years to her name – was caught reading by candlelight, which act, together with the half-amused scolding it provoked, woke the two sisters sharing the room, one a dark-skinned girl with shocking white hair, the other a little freckled thing perhaps half the age of Jean.

"Back to my sleep, my darlings," said Charles. "Kitty, lie down. Where is your dolly? Here we are, now back to sleep."

"Sing to me, Father?" said little Kitty, and did not lie down but instead crawled into her father's lap as he sat upon the edge of the bed.

Charles sighed, a smile lurking at the edges of his mouth, and began to sing in low, clear tones, tucking her head beneath his chin and stroking her hair.

_"Silent night, holy night_  
All is calm, all is bright  
Round yon virgin mother and child  
Holy infant so tender and mild  
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace." 

Erik remained in the doorway, transfixed. The night might not be holy for him, but surely Charles was, with such peace and love and serenity flowing out from him like torchlight, and the child – how different his life might have been, had he been taken into a true home and treated with love, had he been Charles's foundling rather than Shaw's! 

Watching the way the tiny girl curled so trustingly into Charles's arms, Erik imagined a life in which he might have had a daughter of his own to lean fondly on _him,_ and be a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life. Erik had never been tempted by any woman, never thought of marriage – and yet he might have liked to have a family.

Erik knew clearly now how deeply hurt Charles had been in their parting. But _he_ had not drawn himself into a withered knot of unhappiness, locked in a dark hole of his own digging. He had loved others, and loved them well, and built a life of warmth and contentment. Erik could rail in impotent jealousy at those who had taken his share of Charles's love – he wished to, he ardently did. But the lost wife, the doted-on children, the fortunate friends, they had not elbowed Erik aside and cast him out. If Erik had lost his place in Charles's heart, it was because he himself had left it vacant.

The child slept now; Charles tucked her back in bed, dropped kisses on the brows of the other girls, then blew out the candle and made his way, Erik silently following, back downstairs to the parlor.

"Our host returns!" cried the company as Charles entered. "We are just playing a round of yes-and-no; Tony is It."

"And I have a most excellent thing in mind, none shall ever guess it," Mr. Stark said with great satisfaction.

"Unwinnable game's a lot o' fun, innit?" said Mr. Logan testily.

"We have established," cut in Miss Potts before feelings could grow more heated, "that it is an animal, rather a disgreeable one, one might say a savage animal."

Charles looked intrigued. "Does it live in London?"

"It does," Stark answered.

Further questions established that the animal was not in a menagerie or made a show of, and was never butchered or sold in market.

"A horse!" said Erik, for he had met several rather disagreeable horses in his time; but Miss Potts called out the same, and was told no. Neither was it a bull, or a dog, or a cat, and with every guess Mr. Stark burst into a fresh roar of laughter, and eventually grew so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp.

"Wait a moment," said Dr. Banner, a light in his eye. "Does this disagreeable animal speak?"

"It does! Aha, I can see you have parsed it out, Bruce."

"I have indeed! Tony, you rascal!"

"What is it? Tell us!"

"It is Erik Lehnsherr!"

The group burst into outraged laughter at this, Miss Potts taking Tony quite to task for letting them think he spoke of a dumb beast, which the man defended by saying they had not asked the proper questions, and in any case Lehnsherr was close enough to a beast as to make no matter.

The subject of this discussion stood quite still in the midst of the room, suddenly chilled despite the roaring fire, and quite glad after all that he could not be seen nor heard.

"I can see I have no place in this gathering, spirit," he said to the Ghost, who stood more solemnly beside him than was his wont. "Except as a figure to be mocked, and I'd rather not be thought of at all… Is that what you wished to do, by bringing me here? Show me the things I have lost all opportunity to have?" Anger sparked in him, a welcome and familiar shield against pain, but died away again when the spirit extended a finger toward Charles and said,

"There's one still that don't mock ye."

The rest of the company fell quiet at nearly the same moment, noticing their host's shadowed eyes and downturned mouth.

"Have I stepped in it again, Charlie?" said Mr. Stark. "For once, I did not mean to offend – I thought it might cheer you to see him set down, after his incivility."

"It's true Mr. Lehnsherr is not as pleasant as he might be," Charles said, looking fixedly at his tumbler of punch. "But his offenses carry their own punishment. If what I hear of him is true, even his great wealth is of no use to him. It wins him no friends; he does no good with it; he does not even make himself comfortable with it. It's true he was rather cold to me, but I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always." His voice dropped to a distant murmur. "I would see him happy again if I could."

Erik felt his lips part and his sight grow dim. He stepped toward Charles – what he would have given to step out of ghostly invisibility and take Charles's hands in his!

But the grandfather clock began to chime the midnight hour, and the Ghost put a hand on Erik's shoulder. That quickly, they were gone from the Xavier parlor, and standing in some indeterminate place, foggy and dark. 

"It's been grand, Lehnsherr, but I'm off at the last stroke o' midnight."

"So soon? I would not have you leave," Erik said, to his own surprise. "You have shown me so much."

"Aye, that's often the way of it," said the Ghost, turning his torch back to a cigar with a flick of his wrist and drawing deeply from it. "Few there are what likes to see me go, yet my twenty-four hours ain't no longer'n any other's. Folks must 'preciate me company as much as possible in the time they got."

Erik snorted. "You are a humble spirit."

The Ghost grinned, his eyes twinkling. The clock had continued to sound – seven strokes, now eight. "Fare ye well, Lehnsherr – and give my regards to yer next apparition."

"The next…" The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – surely that was a safe presumption. Erik found he was in no hurry to meet him. "Spirit, can you not—"

But the spirit was gone, and the sound of the grandfather clock transformed, for the last three strokes, to the tinnier chime of the clock in Erik's own room.

Three o'clock, and time for the third and final ghost.

As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, the grey and shapeless fog melted into grey and rainy streets, and Erik beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.


	5. Part the Fifth: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last two chapters are still subject to change as betas come back from holiday, but I wanted to get them posted before the holiday spirit quite breathed its last. Happy New Year!

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. Its presence filled Erik with a solemn dread, and he braced himself against the urge to fall to his knees. However grim and terrible this ghost's appearance, it would not conquer Erik's spirit – he trembled, but did not bow, at the Phantom's approach, and looked up into the black void where the ghost's face might have been. This looking up was an unusual sensation for Erik Lehnsherr, who stood a head taller than most of his acquaintance; it was startling, he thought, how very small such a thing could make a man feel.

"Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Erik, when some moments had passed with no word from the Spirit. "You are to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us. Is that so?"

The Spirit still said nothing, but extended its hand, pointing down the rainy street where they stood. Erik recognized it; they were not far from the Exchange, where he was used to spending a good deal of time, in the course of business. He could easily believe finding his future self hereabouts, and he was not sure whether he was more eager or fearful of doing so.

"I have learned a great deal, Spirit, from your brother and sister," he said. "I have perceived for the first time my own abject misery, and how many opportunities to alleviate it I have thrown away – out of pride and anger, in the pursuit of vengeance and gain. I took to heart the life-lessons of the worst man I ever knew, and it has left me, as it did him, a blight and curse on everyone around me. To be quite frank, Spirit, I deeply fear what you may show me here, but my hope is that, like the others before you, your intent is to do me good. Will you not speak to me?"

Not a word in response, only the outstretched hand.

"Lead on, then, Spirit," he said faintly, and silent as a shadow the Phantom glided past, leaving no footprint or disturbance in the water gathering between the cobbles. Erik followed.

Within a few moments' walk, they found themselves in the company of a little knot of businessmen clustered beneath their umbrellas. Erik observed them keenly, looking for some future form of his own countenance among them, but saw none. This could not, he realized, be especially far into the future, for he recognized many of the faces as men with whom he did business, not appreciably older than he had seen them last.

"No," said one familiar fellow, a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another, this one a stranger.

"Last night, I believe."

"Old Scratch has got his own, then," grumbled a third man. "I never knew granite could beat in a man's chest 'til I met that fellow. I know you lot call me a pinchpenny, but admit it, I know when a man must open his purse or leave off calling himself a man at all. I never held a candle to _him."_

"God's own truth, he was the coldest, greediest man that ever walked the earth," the first gentleman agreed. "I do believe he'd have sold his own mother for half-a-crown – and kicked her for free, he was that mean-tempered."

"What has he done with his money?" 

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker, "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it."

"Oh, I might go," said another business acquaintance of Erik's, and his friends looked at him in surprise, until he added with a grin, "If lunch is provided!"

This was received with great mirth, and more than one "Aye! I must be fed to make it worth my while."

"But perhaps you might go, old man?" asked a younger fellow. "I believe you knew him once."

This was directed, Erik saw, to a gentleman of considerable age, all grey hair and skin worn thin as onion-paper, the one alone who had not cracked a smile thus far. At first Erik thought him a stranger, but then he noted the man's remarkable height, his umbrella held head and shoulders above the rest – quite as much taller than he as the spirit still floating blackly behind him. _Borrowed forms,_ he recalled. Had the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come borrowed the form of the old gentleman before him? Who, then, was he to Erik?

"I did know him once," said the old gentleman, in an age-rusted voice so soft as to be hardly heard above the rain. "When I was a young man, and he scarcely more than a child."

There was a long pause here, while the company waited patiently for him to continue, as if quite accustomed to his manner; and Erik peered very closely at the wrinkled face, straining for some sign of familiarity.

"I knew the boy, but I've not known the man for many, many a year," the gentleman continued at last. "No, I shan't go." It seemed he was done – but then he burst out, in sudden agony that was painful to hear, "How Azazelwig would have mourned to see what became of him! I am terribly sorry for it myself."

Realization began to dawn for Erik, and in the next breath it was confirmed, for the younger man leaned forward in concern to touch his elderly friend's sleeve.

"There, there, Mr. Quested, don't take it hard. Come, let us see to some lunch, get you out of this rain."

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and were lost to the crowd; Erik stood still in the rain, chilled through.

"What a peculiar thing," he said, "to see Azazelwig's Silent Partner again, in such a way. I… I suppose he's had a large acquaintance, in his long years. Any man of advanced age will surely lose a number of friends along the way." And he craned his neck about, to see if he did not catch a glimpse of his own future self somewhere on the street.

He did not.

"Spirit," said he at last, when he had gathered the courage for it, "who was the man spoken of just now, whose death was no more than a joke to so many?"

He recoiled in terror, then, for the scene had suddenly changed, and now he almost touched a bed, on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, its size and shape unmistakable.

The dead man had been robbed, that much was clear. Only a trace of pale light fell through the window upon the bed, but enough to see that the rings that ought to have held bedcurtains were empty, and gone were the blankets that ought to have softened the bed itself. From beneath the careless cover of the thin sheet, one arm lay visibly bare, even its burial clothes stolen by whatever opportunist had come upon a man so incapable of defense. Plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Erik glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Erik's part, would have disclosed the face – but he had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

If the businessmen in the street were right in their assessment of this fellow, Erik thought, then if he were raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts, but avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They had brought him to a rich end, truly. He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him.

"Spirit," he said, half choking, "if there is any person in the town, who _feels_ something for this man's death, I beg you will show me."

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting someone, and with anxious eagerness, walking up and down the room, glancing at the window and the clock. When at length the door opened, she hurried to meet the man who entered – surely her husband. His face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

"What news?" she asked. "Oh, tell me. Is it good or bad?"

"Bad," he answered.

"We are quite ruined."

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is. Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened."

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

"What I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me turns out to have been quite true," said her husband. "He was not only very ill, but dying, then."

"To whom will our debt be transferred?"

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep tonight with light hearts, Caroline." And he drew first her, and then his curiously watching children, close to him to kiss and embrace, giddy relief bringing tears to his eyes.

"A happier house," Erik said numbly, "for this man's death. I did only ask for some feeling, Spirit, but I might have thought – is there no one left in all London who can feel _tenderness_ connected with death?"

And with another sweep of the Ghost's robe, they were in the house of Henry McCoy.

Young Anna and Kurt sat at the table with Raven their mother, and not a one of them was speaking, or smiling – hardly even moving at all. The boy held a book, the girl a doll, and their mother an armful of sewing; but the book sat unread, the doll was only hugged tight and rocked slowly back and forth, and the sewing – the sewing collected more tears than stitches by far.

"Oh, Mother," Kurt whispered, reaching out to touch Mrs. McCoy's shoulder.

"I am fine! Truly," she said, dabbing her eyes with the hem of the coat she mended, and putting a false brightness over her face that quite twisted Erik's gut. "It is the dim light – working in dim light weakens my eyes. There." She dabbed again. "I would not… I would not show weak eyes to your father when he returns, not for the world. It must be near his time."

"Past it, rather," said Kurt.

"He will be here soon," said Anna. "Father walks so quickly! I have seen him walk quicker than I could run, and that with Little Charlie on his shoulder!"

"Yes, indeed." Mrs. McCoy looked down at her sewing again, the ghost of a smile passing over her face like a shadow. "But Little Charlie was so light to carry, he said, that it was no trouble."

Over by the fire, in Little Charlie's accustomed spot, Erik caught sight of a little wheeled chair, sitting empty. His throat quite closed of its own accord.

The door opened, Hank returned at last, and as one they all rose to greet him, and the family stood some little while with all their arms wrapped 'round each other, quietly. Very quietly.

"I wish you could have gone, darling," Hank said at last to his wife. "It would have done you good to see how green a place it is – a spot on the hill, like we hoped, where you might see the ducks on the river. Little Charlie loved…" His voice faltered.

His wife finished for him. "He always loved to watch the ducks on the river."

At this Hank's brave face began to crumble, and he excused himself. Erik followed him up the stairs, to a little room which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas garlands. On the bed lay a tiny, still form, with a bright-patterned blanket tucked 'round him, at which Erik could hardly bear to look.

His father looked, though, and took a seat in the chair at the bedside, which bore signs of having been much used of late. He touched the little hand, and wept a while – and his employer with him, though he little knew it – and murmured once or twice some bit of scripture, from which he seemed to take heart. When he was composed again, he kissed his son's tiny face, and went back to his family.

He came down to find dinner set at the table, and took his place there to say grace. Looking round at his family's downcast eyes and trembling lips, he took his wife's hand on the one side, and his daughter's on the other.

"It's all right, my loves," he said. "Life is made up of meetings and partings, and neither of them are forever. However much it pains us to be parted from our Little Charlie, we shan't be separated but a certain time, and then all be together again in heaven. We must all be very good, so that we can be sure of joining him there."

"I will, Father," whispered Anna. "We all will."

"I am sure you will, for you have all of you the best hearts in the world. And until then, we must take our comfort in each other."

At this his daughter left her seat for his lap, and put her arms around his neck; the others followed, gathering around him to share the embrace.

Erik fled, certain he had no place in such a tender family moment, and found himself upstairs again, where the tiny fragile form, so similar to the one he had loved best in all his life, lay still. He thought again of the man in the bare, cold room, whom no one missed or mourned, and who might expect no one to join him in Paradise – for was he not described as the very sort of man whose chains would drag him through the world, as Emma Frost's were doing even now?

"Spirit," he said to the shadow whose cold presence had never left his side, "I had no courage to see for myself, but I beseech you to tell me. Who was the man whom we saw lying dead?"

The Phantom touched his shoulder, and their surroundings dissolved once more into grey mist. Only slowly did Erik realize this was, indeed, their new location, for the mist remained thick– but at length he perceived the wrought-iron boundary and jutting headstone shapes of a churchyard. The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to one.

Erik strode forward – but faltered before the fog had quite parted between himself and the stone.

"Answer me one question, spirit," he said, "in the name of your host, if my old friendship with Mr. Quested means aught to you. Tell me – are these the shadows of things that will be, or things that may be only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"I have seen that the path I walk leads to this end, or one very like," Erik said. "I can see the truth of the business I have neglected. I have had so many opportunities to become a kinder and happier man, and I have sneered at them and hidden from them, just as I hid in my rooms from the merriment of Christmas Day – an isolated, miserable, loveless old man at two-and-forty. I see that now."

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Nothing for it, then. Erik squared his shoulders and stepped forward, following the finger, and read the name upon the stone of the neglected grave.

ERIK LEHNSHERR.

If he were honest with himself, it was no surprise; yet still it was a shock to have his most painful suspicion confirmed. 

"Spirit!" he said, clutching hard at the shadow's sleeve, "I tell you I am not the man I was. It cannot be too late to step off the lonely path to this destination. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

"You are not immovable, then!" Erik cried. "Tell me, Spirit, only tell me how I might save myself?"

The hand swung round, toward the gate into the churchyard, where Erik was surprised to see that the sky was just perceptibly lightening with dawn, and a man was walking in. He was bundled against the cold, and bore something in his hands that could not be clearly seen. Only when he was quite close did Erik recognize him.

"Charles," he whispered, and felt his legs lose all strength beneath him, so that he must kneel in the damp and snow-dusted earth.

"Hello, Erik," Charles said, and for a brilliant moment Erik thought he saw him – but it was the headstone he addressed. "I know – I know Christmas is my holy day and none of yours. All the same, I could not bear to think of you spending it entirely alone, yet again, after the many lonely days of your life. I hope you will forgive me for wishing you a Merry Christmas." He set down his burden to lean against the headstone – a wreath of evergreen and holly – and lowered himself to one knee, reaching out to run the very tips of his fingers across the engraved name, as if he dared no further touch. Desperately Erik reached out to catch those fingers, but his hands passed through unremarked.

Perhaps Charles did feel something of the attempted touch, or perhaps it was chance that made his breath catch in that moment, and stutter on the words, "Oh, Erik, my friend," and thereafter fall to bitter weeping.

"I can change this," Erik cried, and hardly knew whether he spoke to Charles, the Spirit, or himself. "I _will_ change it, I swear I will. I will not be the man who lies here. Already I am not he, I know I am not!"

He felt a most peculiar sensation, as of something heavy falling away from him, a weight he had not known he carried until it was removed, leaving his frame lighter and freer than it had been since his childhood. He dashed tears from his eyes, but found them blurry still, and everything around him obscured by the grey fog. Only the tall black shape of the Phantom could he see, and as his vision cleared he saw it shrink, collapse, and dwindle down into… a bedpost.


	6. Part the Sixth: The End

The bedpost was his own, the room was his own… He was returned, Erik realized, with dawn just creeping into the window-pane, and his life was his own, still open before him, ready to be changed.

"Amends," Erik whispered, struggling free of the bedcovers he stood half-tangled in. "I can still make amends. Past is not lost, Present and Future can still be changed – Oh, Emma, truest of friends! Would that I could do as much for you! Oh, Heaven and all three Christmas Spirits be praised! I'm here, and the shadows of things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be! I know they will."

His hands were busy with his garments all this time, and if he had doubted the reality of his experience, the presence of coat and shoes over his dressing gown surely argued in its favor; in the meantime his fumbling hands turned shirts inside out, and trousers upside down, until he forced himself to stop for breath.

"I don't know what to do!" he cried, laughing and crying in the same breath. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!"

He looked about at his room; there was the saucepan of gruel that a miserable man had sat down to so short a time ago, and the ashen remnant of the fire too ill-fed to warm that man – surely it had not been himself! Here now stood Erik Lehnsherr restored to his entirety – that other man was but the withered husk left by the diseases of loneliness and pain. Erik got his clothes properly on at last, and stepped out the door, feeling that he might very happily never see those rooms again.

In the street was precisely the joyful bustle he had observed with the Ghost of Christmas Present, snow sifting lightly down and calls of "Merry Christmas!" in all directions. Erik tipped his hat to all that greeted him, and made a determined sweep of the market, buying some of all that was best for a Christmas dinner – grapes and apples and oranges, cakes and pies and loaves of bread, and most satisfactorily, a prize turkey twice the size of Little Charlie. As he soon lost the ability to carry all these purchases himself, he engaged the services of a rather ragged trio of boys, who proved willing to carry his things wherever he liked for half-a-crown in their pockets.

Shopping concluded and all this in tow, Erik set a course for the poorer side of town, and the home of Henry McCoy.

His clerk was beyond startled to see him at the door, and at first Erik adopted his former grim visage (the trio of boys with their burdens left just out of sight) so as to surprise Mr. McCoy all the more thoroughly – and, in all honesty, from a sudden shy uncertainty in how else to act. This business of changing one's character, he thought, was not perhaps as easily accomplished as decided upon.

Then again, perhaps it was, for where his clerk's timid stammering would once have filled him with impatience and contempt, it now stirred such affection that Erik could hardly hold his countenance. When Hank's wife joined him at the door, her demeanor bristling with outrage, it was all Erik could do not to embrace them both.

"This is an intolerable breach of our agreement, Mr. McCoy," he said instead.

"—shan't – shan't happen again, sir—"

"I think _this_ is an intolerable breach, sir," said Raven hotly, "of a man's right to be with his family—"

"I am quite certain it will not happen again," Erik said sternly to Hank, "and furthermore, I have every intention—"

"And furthermore, Mr. Lehnsherr, I demand that you remove yourself—"

"—of raising your salary!"

Silence, and Mr. and Mrs. McCoy staring at him in fish-like shock.

"I intend to raise your salary, Hank," Erik repeated, savoring the sensation of the smile stealing across his face. "And pay your mortgage on this house. Or," eyeing the cracked plaster, "a better one, if you like."

Still the two of them stared, while Erik peered past them at the three children clustered behind their parents – Kurt standing protectively in front of his sister and brother, Little Charlie watching him with wide, hopeful blue eyes.

"I have something further to say to you, Mrs. McCoy, if you will permit me," said Erik, reaching for her hand. "I have word of your brother."

***

Charles Xavier, judging by his expression, could not have less expected anything than for Erik, the McCoy family, and three boys bearing an abundance of food, to appear at his front door.

"Forgive me, I'm sure I am not expected," Erik said, "but as you did, in fact, invite me for Christmas dinner…"

"Of course," Charles said faintly. "Do come in."

For several lovely moments, Charles's gaze was all composed of wonder and joy, and all of it for Erik. Then he glanced past Erik, began to say, "Won't you introduce me to your friends?" – and stopped partway through, visibly recognizing the woman who stood in the doorway, tears of happiness streaming down her face.

 

Many hours passed in a whirlwind of tears and laughter, brother and sister reunited and introduced to each other's unsuspected families. Erik knew he would forever treasure the image of Charles holding his tiny namesake on his lap by the fire, and a hundred other moments of love and happiness throughout the day. Especially as Charles's friends began to arrive, however, Erik felt more and more that his presence was unnecessary, if not already forgotten. To feel hurt and ill-used, Erik told himself, was unworthy; but he was not so accustomed to doing good that he could bear with equanamity his efforts going unremarked, especially by those he most wished to serve. He made up his mind to depart, before he did anything to shame himself, and spend the evening of Christmas Day in his bleak old rooms after all.

Charles surprised him in the entryway as he was donning his coat and hat. "Erik, do not tell me you are going?"

"It seemed best," Erik managed, with difficulty, to reply. "Your house is full enough already."

"Full indeed, thanks entirely to you! I must know, by and by, how you came to know that Mrs. McCoy was my own Raven – but the details are not of import today. What is of import is how horribly remiss I've been in thanking you for bringing us together. Erik, I cannot tell you what it means to me." And before Erik could respond, he was folded tight in an embrace that he could not think of resisting, but returned in kind, dropping his coat in order to wrap both arms full around his old friend.

"Raven alone would be by far the best Christmas present I ever received," Charles continued. "To have a new brother, as well, and their three precious little ones – my heart near bursts every time I think of it! But for _you_ to be the engineer of this reunion – oh, Erik, I can hardly believe it is not a dream, for both those souls whose loss I have lamented the most bitterly, to be returned to me all at once!" Only now did he break their embrace, and only, it seemed, to better see Erik's face, which he traced with gentle fingertips, much as he had once traced – would never trace, surely, God willing – the name on a tombstone.

"Don't go," Charles whispered, as Erik leaned into the touch. "Please don't go."

"Never," Erik replied, covering Charles's hand with his own, "if you want me to stay."

Their eyes met, and searched each other for long moments, brightening as each found what they had hardly dared hope to find. Finally Charles, his gaze flicking up above their heads, made the observation, "We seem to have ended up beneath the mistletoe again."

"Have we?"

Erik had no opportunity to verify this for himself, for already Charles's hands were pulling him down, and he went willingly, as willingly as anything in his life, to press their lips together.

***

To Charles Xavier, Erik became a partner in every way, and the deepest love he could ever hope for. To the sprawling brood of Xavier children, he was a second father, and especially to young Kitty; for when it was by chance discovered that the child knew some words of Hebrew, further investigation revealed her heritage to be the same as his, and he nurtured her faith with the winter-blooming of his own.

To Little Charlie – whose health improved rapidly with wholesome, abundant food and warmth, so that soon he could run and play as well as anyone – his new uncles became hardly less than another set of parents. To the child's true parents Erik was no more the fearful tyrant but one of the family; as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city ever knew. And to the charitable Order of Victoria, Erik joined Charles Xavier in the ranks of their greatest donors and supporters, insisting that a great many back-payments were included in his efforts.

There were some, of course, that laughed, and called the Christmas of that year "the day Old Lehnsherr lost his mind," but he paid them no heed, for never was there any good done in this world that was not mocked by someone. As far as Erik was concerned – thinking of the loyal tenants and grateful debtors that tipped their hats to him in the street, and more importantly looking round at the warm and comfortable home he now shared with an abundance of self-declared nieces and nephews, and more vitally still at the warm arms that welcomed him to bed each night, the bright eyes that regarded him always with a joy that Erik could not at all believe he deserved – as far as Erik was concerned, folk might laugh themselves ill at him, and the joke would be all on themselves. 

It was said that, in the latter part of his life, Erik Lehnsherr kept Christmas remarkably well, for a man that never darkened the door of a Christian church – and to some he might admit a fondness for the day, in honor of some three or four friends who had set his life a-right when it was gone quite wrong. In truth, however, his Yuletide behavior differed very little from that of the rest of the year; he was merely that kind and pleasant a gentleman – in his own somewhat gruff and blundering way, as one to whom a smile seldom came as naturally as a growl. Those who mattered never minded that, knowing the true heart that lay beneath. 

Little Charlie was chief among that number, and it was always from his Uncle Erik's lap at Christmas dinner that he called out his traditional benediction – with Uncle murmuring agreement beneath his breath – "God bless us! God bless us, every one!"

THE END


End file.
